The artifact that I will be comparing in my essay is the article “The Equal Rights Amendment: What You Need to Know” by Robin Bleiweis:
The Equal Rights Amendment: What You Need To Know – Center for American Progress
This article utilizes the trust lens with ethos, pathos, and logos as well as a little bit of the visual rhetoric lens.
The main differences between the two are of course the median (one is a short video and the other is an extensive online article).
But whereas the “Never Stop Winning” ad is focused on the issue of equal pay and discrimination based on sex in sports,
the Equal Rights Amendment is a Constitutional Amendment that would affect the entire nation.
These are very different scales and as a result the article’s use of pathos differs from the advertisement.
The advertisement is meant to be inspirational and gain support like a sports team would gain fans: through getting pumped up.
The article uses pathos in a more serious fashion.
Because the stakes are considered higher with the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the main emotion utilized by the article is that of fear.
It lists out the possibilities for discrimination in law based on logos patterns that have upheld discrimination in the past.
This creates a mood of grim determination in the audience to want to support the passage of the amendment.
Some similarities between the article and the “Never Stop Winning” advertisement are their use of logos to establish patterns that support both of the messages.
They also both use powerful images meant to evoke pride and inspiration:
The article uses a striking image of RBG on the title page, and the advertisement uses images of equally strong women meant to inspire the same way the article does as well.
These similarities and differences are important to each of the audiences because the advertisement is coming from a place of triumph with more work ahead, whereas the article is fighting through illegitimacy.
The similarities show that both are fighting the same fight, but just that one is on a much bigger level then only equal pay in one field.
I think this is a great artifact to compare to your advertisement. I like how one medium is focused on equality in sports, but then the document is focused on the issue of equality as a whole. I see the legal document as the large-scale lens and then the advertisement as zooming in on a subsection of the problem. These will compare and contrast nicely because they are addressing the same broad issue but have different audiences and focuses. I think the block method would work great for this comparison because they are very different mediums.
I like that you chose the Equal Rights Amendment article to compare to the advertisement, for it focuses on the issue of gender equality as a whole instead of a specific faction. The article provides a lot of material to work with in your essay when comparing and contrasting the two artifacts, which will help to fill your body paragraphs rather than having filler sentences. I think you can elaborate more on the visual impact of both artifacts on the audience, such as the simplistic design of the article with bold headings for each important section.